On October 26, President Bush signed the USA Patriot
Act (USAPA), to help fight
terrorism. Given the events of 9/11, an anti-terrorism bill sounds good.
Unfortunately, USAPA can too easily be misused as a weapon against citizens
who may be on some sort of personal or political enemies list of those
in power. Think of President Nixon and
his enemies list to get the picture. But, unlike
in Nixon's day, USAPA is set up so that there is no meaningful check
on the power of the executive branch by the judicial branch of our government.
If misused, USAPA can amount to open season on anyone in this nation.
Secret searches, wiretaps, web snooping, access to personal medical
records and more are all in USAPA. This is the stuff of 3 a.m. knocks
on the door carried out by repressive regimes.

It gets worse. On November 13, Mr. Bush signed an order
allowing secret military trials of suspected terrorists which could
conceivably include secret executions. "You're guilty. Take the
defendant into the alley and shoot him."

Given the fact that all nineteen terrorists involved
in the 9/11 attacks were foreign nationals and ten of them were in the
country illegally at the time they vaporized themselves and around 6,000
others, many citizens who have been clamoring for some sort of immigration
reform to protect our borders had hoped that President Bush would finally
bring an end to the madness of unbridled immigration. However, it appears
that Mr. Bush has no such intention. USAPA and the military tribunal
order might be likened to the situation where a homeowner, tired of
having his house constantly flooded by a nearby river, goes out and
buys more buckets to bail out the place instead of building up the banks
of the river.

On
November 14, Attorney General John Ashcroft gave a speech about restructuring
the INS, and he said "America is a nation of immigrants. Our commitment
to maintaining controlled but open borders not only is enshrined in
our laws, but it's deeply embedded in our national character."
Good grief! Mr. Ashcroft, EVERY nation is a nation of immigrants. Humans
have been moving over the face of the Earth since there were humans.
Saying, today, that America is a nation of immigrants is as absurd as
saying that America is a nation of people who wet their diapers. Yes,
we all once wet our diapers, but after we passed infancy most of us
stopped doing so. Are we to be held captive to a cliche about what we
as individuals and as a nation did in our infancy? America has grown
out of diapers, Mr. Ashcroft. It's time we put away the things of our
national infancy.

Congressman
Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who is a long time immigration reformer, told
a group of reporters the other day that there may be as many as 14 million
illegal aliens in the U.S.at any given time. He also pointed out that
terrorism on our shores is not the only downside to lax immigration
laws, and that one quarter of inmates in federal prisons in the U.S.
are foreign-born. Most citizens are at least partly aware of this illegal
alien/criminal connection, because they see the crime brought to U.
S. cities every time they open a newspaper. News reports on crimes these
days seem to have fewer perpetrators with names like Riley, Jones and
Smith and more with names such as Sanchez, Morales and Hernandez.

Instead of doing something realistic about protecting
our borders against non-citizens, USAPA gives power to the Feds to get
around the Constitution and use methods that are offensive to the spirit
of the Bill of Rights. The problem, as mentioned above, is that while
many of the provisions of the bill can be used to spy on potential terrorists
and interrupt their plans, it can also be used in ordinary criminal
investigations and it can even be used to curtail First Amendment rights
if government officials feel that a particular exercise of free speech
is a threat to national security. Such as criticizing the government
or government officials?

And, what about this nebulous term "terrorism."
What does it mean? There is no single definition of the term, and this
can lead to abuses both by government agents and by the usual left wing
fascists who now may add "terrorist" to their lexicon of words
such as "racist" and "hate" they they use to intimidate
others into silence. All of this has a chilling effect on free speech
and our civil liberties.

One definition of terrorism is found in Title 22 of
United States Code, Section 2656f(d), " The term 'terrorism' means
premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant
targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended
to influence an audience."

However, the definition of terrorism favored by USAPA
appears to be contained in SEC. 802. DEFINITION OF DOMESTIC TERRORISM.

(a) DOMESTIC TERRORISM DEFINED- Section 2331 of
Title 18, United States Code, `(5) the term `domestic terrorism'
means activities that--

`(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that
are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of
any State;

`(B) appear to be intended--

`(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

`(ii) to influence the policy of a government
by intimidation or coercion; or

`(iii) to affect the conduct of a government
by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

`(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction
of the United States.'.

Consider those definitions, and look at all the weasel
words. Many ordinary citizens
mocked Bill Clinton when he said "It depends on what the definition
of 'is' is." But, Clinton was right. In the law, words must be
correctly and narrowly defined. In the above definition, just to pull
out one example, what exactly does "appear to be intended"
mean? It can mean just about anything one wants it to mean, and that's
one of the problems with this type of law. Here's one of many possible
scenarios: Suppose a group of citizens holds a rally against something
and does this by chaining themselves
to the White House fence, so that they block the sidewalk. Well, it
could be argued that their blocking of the sidewalk was an act dangerous
to human life because it forced pedestrians to walk in the street. It
would violate laws against blocking the sidewalk and thus be a criminal
violation. This act of chaining themselves to the fence and blocking
the sidewalk could be seen as an attempt to influence the policy of
a government by intimidation or coercion. Thus, these peaceful demonstrators
could be tried as terrorists. And, if the system is abused and military
style tribunals are used for instances such as this, these people could
suddenly "disappear."

Take
it even further and imagine, as has often been the case, that left wing
fascist agent
provocateurs infiltrate a peaceful demonstration and cause or provoke
violence. Those who want to curtail civil liberties might then use the
color of the law to blame the peaceful demonstrators for the violence
and charge them as terrorists.

So, what should the President do to fight terrorism
by those sneaking into this nation? He should do the direct and obvious
thing: close our borders. America does
not need any more immigrants either legal or illegal, and citizens should
not have to live in a police state in order to be protected from foreign
nationals. Furthermore, no one in the world has a right to come to the
U.S. This is our land, and it is our right to say who can come here,
when they can come, and how many of them can come. This is our club.
We are members. We make the rules. Period.